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Robinson, CJ., James, G., PJ Whitehead, 2016. Negotiating Indigenous benefits from

payment from ecosystem (PES) schemes, Global Environmental Change 28, 21-29. doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.02.004

Abstract

This paper draws on research conducted with Aboriginal land managers across Northern Australia to

show how and why payments for ecosystem service (PES) schemes should be framed around Indigenous

rights to and relationships with their traditional estates. PES schemes offer opportunities to recognise

and support Aboriginal communities’ land and sea management knowledge and practices, and there is

strong evidence that Indigenous communities are seeking to engage with such schemes. We focus on

Aboriginal savanna landscape management, particularly traditional burning practices, to extend the

ecosystem services framework to recognise Indigenous values and interactions with their lands as a

critical service for Indigenous well-being. Drawing on case-study analysis of PES projects negotiated to

support Aboriginal fire management programs across Northern Australia, we show how cultural

ecosystem services can be applied to represent the active, dynamic and often interdependent

relationships inherent in Indigenous human–environment relationships.

Key words: Northern Australia, carbon offset schemes, Aboriginal landscape burning, cultural ecosystem

services, human rights

Highlights • Indigenous people’s relationships to their traditional estates, and the practices involved in their care,

can inform the design of payment for ecosystem service (PES) agreements. • We expand understandings and applications of cultural ecosystem services to show how this can build

synergies between PES frameworks and the priorities of Indigenous groups.

• Indigenous savanna landscape burning is used as an illustrative example to demonstrate how this framing can be applied to designing and assessing Indigenous benefits from PES agreements.

1. Introduction

Sustainable development has been defined as a quest to deliver ecosystem services while

enhancing human well-being (MEA, 2005). Recognising that well-being is determined by

more than economic benefits (Costanza et al., 2012), conservation and sustainable

development policy agendas are being reshaped to acknowledge and safeguard the cultural

and social benefits that environments provide (Diaz et al. 2015), and to enhance local

community rights and decision-making authority in environmental management (Daniel et

al., 2012; Robinson et al., 2014a). The direct links between cultural and natural services

identified by Indigenous people globally—coupled with recognition of the human rights

implications of damaging those links—have highlighted the importance of ensuring that

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sustainable development efforts acknowledge and protect Indigenous peoples’ rights and

authority, and reflect their values and priorities (Diaz et al., 2015).1

However, effectively incorporating Indigenous1 peoples’ rights and benefits into sustainable

development goals and programs remains a critical planning and management challenge

(UNEP, 2014). Indigenous livelihoods often depend on the direct use of local environments,

and protecting the capacity of lands to maintain outputs of biophysical services is therefore

a necessary commitment. In addition, less tangible but nonetheless critical aspects of well-

being depend on meeting customary obligations to care for lands and resources using

traditional methods. One’s ability to discharge these obligations is obviously affected by

conditions of access to lands and possession of decision-making powers (rights) (e.g. Poe et

al., 2014; Satz et al., 2013; Stevens, 2014; Jackson and Palmer, 2014; Bark et al., 2015).

Respecting human rights while responding to the needs of ecosystems requires ecosystem

management tools capable of protecting such relationships.

Financial incentives for land owners and managers to maintain biophysical services from

well-managed ecosystems have become powerful tools internationally. Payment for

ecosystem services (PES) schemes, defined by Tacconi (2012, 29) as ‘transparent system(s)

for the additional provision of environmental services through conditional payments to

voluntary providers,’ have become a key feature of natural resource management markets

and programs (Costanza et al., 2014). Although these schemes are considered one of the

most effective means of securing ecosystem services on a global scale, they may not reliably

offer ‘win-win’ solutions for global buyers and local suppliers (Howe et al., 2014; Muradian

et al., 2013). Demonstrating that cultural services are not damaged when the delivery of

biophysical environmental services is driven by strong financial incentives remains a key

challenge (e.g. Fitzsimons et al., 2012; Russell-Smith et al., 2009).

In a number of locations, Indigenous communities are using payment for ecosystem service

(PES) agreements to negotiate support for their environmental management activities and

livelihoods. A relatively narrow range of provisioning services (sensu MEA 2005) has been

1 1 In this paper, the term ‘Indigenous’ is used to describe people who have specific rights based on their historical and cultural ties to a particular

territory. The term ‘Aboriginal’ refers to the Indigenous people of Northern Australia.

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targeted. Maintaining or improving water availability and quality, protecting or restoring

forests and woodlands to restore other ecological functions and store carbon, and

enhancing biodiversity conservation are common objectives (e.g. Whitehead et al., 2009).

Where cultural services are addressed, they may relate to visual amenity or recreational

values (Daniel et al., 2012).

A growing number of studies focus on the extent to which such schemes align with the

needs and aspirations of providers. Recurring questions include: what factors influence

participation (Bark et al., 2015); do PES schemes infringe the political and other autonomy

of local people (Jackson and Palmer, 2014); do net benefits actually reach participants (e.g.

Kacsan et al., 2013); are benefits accessed equitably (McDermott et al., 2012); are other

livelihoods displaced (Richie 2009); and does participation strengthen or weaken Indigenous

cultural heritage (Petty et al., 2015)?

In part, this work tracks growing recognition of the importance of the ‘human dimension’ of

global environmental change research, which investigates the political and cultural

complexity of apparently universal concepts and protocols concerning the state of the

planet and its future (Diaz et al., 2015). At the heart of this work is an acknowledgement

that different socio-geographies define and value ecosystems in divergent ways (Corbera

and Pascual, 2012; Zander and Garnett, 2011), and that these definitions and evaluations

are influenced by dynamic political and social values and commitments (Costanza et al.,

2014).

In this paper, we report perspectives from existing and potential Indigenous participants in

PES schemes in Australia. We then adapt Chan et. al’s (2012) cultural ecosystem service

framework to conceptualise and categorise Indigenous benefits that can be negotiated from

PES agreements. We begin by considering the intersection of ecosystem services with the

practices and ethics associated with Indigenous–environment relationships, before focusing

on programs for abatement of greenhouse gas emissions through fire management projects

in Northern Australia. We regard such projects as particularly relevant to the important

questions raised above because they operate over very large areas and involve multiple

clans collectively managing an activity (fire use) that is integral to Aboriginal culture and

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requires the participation of many individuals. Consequently, performance in reducing

emissions depends on high levels of collaboration among Indigenous groups and support

from the wider community.

1.1 Caring for Country and PES Fire Agreements in Northern Australia

Australia’s Aboriginal people have a long tradition of systematically and purposefully using

fire to manage the landscape. The effects of Aboriginal landscape burning can be seen in the

defining features and health of Australia’s terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystems (Bowman,

1998). Bowman (1998) and Rose (1986) highlight explicit links between ecological structures

and functions and the Aboriginal values and benefits achieved through landscape burning,

applying practices supported by Aboriginal legal frameworks and land ethics. As Senior

Aboriginal Elder Dean Yibarbuk explains, the well-being of Indigenous people is intimately

linked to use and non-use values associated with landscape burning:

“... as they grow, young people learn that fire is more than just

something for cooking and hunting—that it has deeper meaning in

our culture. As they attend ceremonies with their parents they see

and learn to respect the sacred fires that are central physical parts of

the most sacred of ceremonies. Importantly these fires sit between

the ceremony grounds where children and women stay and the more

spiritually dangerous ceremony grounds where only senior initiated

men go” (Yibarbuk, 1998, 2).

National law for a Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) has established methods for reducing

volumes of greenhouse gases (nitrous oxide and methane) released in the burning of grassy

fuels, leaf litter and fine woody fuels. While the legally accepted methods acknowledge the

role of fire in maintaining savanna systems, they seek to change the timing of the burning

and reducing the total area burned, re-establishing fire regimes closer to traditional practice

than prevailing regimes dominated by wildfire (Russell-Smith et al., 2009). Aboriginal

communities and their organisations have taken up opportunities to earn carbon credits

with some enthusiasm. By the end of 2015, ten projects working over several million

hectares of mostly Indigenous land had sought to deliver credits to government under

formal contracts that include substantial penalties for under-delivery.

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Aboriginal customary land owners share an ontological connection to familial land estates

and a commitment to care for their ‘country.’ ‘Caring for country’ is a phrase that describes

a range of Aboriginal land and sea management practices, ancestral connection and

obligations to country and culture-based enterprises that sustain landscape and community

values important to Aboriginal people (Yibarbuk, 1998). The Indigenous land ethic that

underpins these activities challenges the dominant ecosystem service paradigm because it is

driven by the notion of reciprocal relationships between people and country (Garnett et al.,

2009)—in essence, the notion that ‘if you look after country, the country will look after you’

(Griffiths and Kinnane, 2010). As Altman et al. (2007, 27) explain, ‘caring for country’

amounts to ‘more than the physical management of geographical areas—it encompasses

looking after all of the values, places, resources, stories and cultural obligations associated

with that area, as well as associated processes of spiritual revival, connecting with

ancestors, food provision and maintaining kin relations.’

Indigenous communities are pragmatic in their efforts to create what Morphy and Morphy

(2013) describe as an ‘intercultural space’ with PES partners, provided such partnerships

maintain Indigenous peoples’ autonomy over the ways in which human–ecosystem

interactions and benefits are understood and valued. Mechanisms such as participatory

approaches to evaluating Indigenous benefits from PES agreements (e.g. Izurieta et al.,

2011; Stacey et al., 2013) and the development of a ‘recognition space’ (Taylor, 2008)

between Aboriginal and program reporting frameworks (which creates indicators

particularly for Aboriginal people) have been highlighted as possible ways to address some

of these issues. Yet these mechanisms can struggle to overcome the fundamental challenges

associated with aligning the aspirations of local Indigenous communities and land managers

with commercial purposes and providing valuation categories that are meaningful to

Indigenous people (Diaz et al., 2015). As a result, PES frameworks can remain focused on

addressing undesirable global environmental change without considering the issues that are

significant to local communities and contexts (Veland et al., 2013) and that motivate those

communities to participate in delivering global-scale environmental targets.

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The skilled and coordinated use of fire according to locally specific norms makes essential

contributions to meeting those obligations (Yibarbuk et al., 2002). Deployment of such an

activity—of profound significance for maintaining tangible and intangible Indigenous

cultural heritage—to meet other external goals raises important questions about the risks of

infringing rights to use landscapes for other livelihoods or other customary purposes and

compromising Indigenous cultural services (Petty et al., 2015). We approach the study from

the perspective that those deploying financial incentives to change land management

should understand what they are seeking to influence and appreciate the wider implications

of promoting change.

2. Methods – the Northern Australian Fire Management Case Study

To investigate how Aboriginal people valued the practices and outcomes of savanna

landscape burning, the research team applied a qualitative multiple-case-study approach

(Gerring, 2007). This approach was applied to guide questions for local Aboriginal

communities that enquired about the motivations, practices and desired outcomes

associated with landscape burning. Perspectives about were drawn from workshops held

with local communities across Northern Australia who are actively participating in, or are

interested in participating in, fire management projects that can generate carbon credits

through reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (James, 2012; NAILSMA, 2013b). Key

points raised during these discussions were then analysed by the research team, focusing on

how local Aboriginal values can guide practical measures of land management success at the

local level, and how Aboriginal communities could inform the design and evaluation of

savanna fire carbon offset projects specifically, and land management enterprise more

broadly (Figure 1). These categories were checked and approved by Elders in each case-

study community.

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Figure 1. Proposed fire abatement regions Source: Fitzsimons et al., 2012

Three workshops were held with Traditional Owners and Aboriginal land managers in

Western Cape York, the Gulf of Carpentaria and Central Arnhem Land. Workshops attracted

30–40 people who were already involved in developing fire management projects (at

various stages), or had seniority and knowledge of the country in the focal area. Participants

were self-nominated or identified through the local land management group and consented

to participate. Questions were posed at the workshop to elicit the type of benefits sought by

Indigenous people motivated to engage in PES schemes and the mechanisms by which these

benefits could be negotiated from workshop participants. The demographic in each location

included 10–20 men and women and a cross-section of Aboriginal rangers and non-ranger

customary landowners (with some overlap).

Indigenous organisations involved in delivering carbon offset projects across Northern

Australia were also contacted and representatives were interviewed by telephone (see

Robinson et al., 2014a). A semi-structured interview was also conducted, which included the

following question: What benefits are desired from the local Aboriginal community

participating, or interested in engaging, in a carbon PES scheme? Of the 28 Indigenous

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organisations identified across Northern Australia, 79 percent participated in the survey.

Interviews were conducted by telephone and lasted between 30 and 60 minutes.

The authors recognise that while interviews and workshops are a valuable source of

information, they are verbal reports and as such are subject to a number of potential

problems, including poor or inaccurate articulation of information. This issue was managed

in three ways. Firstly, participants were provided with oral and written information about

the workshop or survey, as well as a list of questions, prior to the event. They were also

given at least a week between initial contact and the interview or workshop to reflect on

their experiences before engaging with the researchers. Secondly, the research team

collected as much information as possible about the respondents’ involvement in and

responses to carbon offset activities so that interviewers could assist the respondent in

recalling information at the time of the interview. Finally, the researchers facilitating the

workshops or conducting the interviews made it clear to participants that results would be

formulated from many interviews and interactions, limiting the opportunity for any one

individual to bias results.

Quotes from workshops and interviews with Aboriginal fire managers and Elders were

entered into NVivo software for analysis to determine the desired benefits from

participating in fire management activities, and how causality between these desired

benefits and Aboriginal people’s participation in fire management PES schemes might be

assessed. This software allows relevant sections of text to be retrieved through a process of

coding (Saldana, 2009), which involves carefully reading, describing textual data and

categorising data using a descriptive word. This identified higher-order groupings of benefits

desired by Indigenous communities.

The coding process related categories identified in Chan et al.’s (2012) cultural ecosystem

service framework to the aspirations and priorities of the Indigenous people surveyed. The

cultural services offered by the ecosystems services framework have been defined to

include ‘non-material benefits’ such as ‘cultural diversity, spiritual and religious values,

inspiration, aesthetic values, social relations, sense of place, cultural heritage values,

recreation and ecotourism’ (MEA, 2005). An expanded understanding and application of

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cultural ecosystem services can provide a more holistic approach to PES schemes, allowing

them to accommodate Indigenous understanding of nature–society interrelationships (cf.

Jackson and Palmer, 2015).

3. Results and Discussion

In both components of the study, structured interactions with Indigenous participants

focused on what Indigenous communities gained or hoped to gain by participating in a

carbon PES scheme. Despite recognising that fire projects may produce tradeable GHG

emissions reductions, biodiversity and other biophysical outcomes, Aboriginal workshop

participants invariably noted that their principal aim was improving the well-being of local

Indigenous people. Keeping country and resources in good condition provides essential

support for that fundamental goal, but enhanced well-being also depends critically on the

detail of the processes and practices used to promote the biophysical health of landscapes.

PES scheme processes and practices were explored through an array of related questions

covered in each workshop, which varied in detail among respondents based on their prior

responses. A representative sample of questions put in the practitioner-oriented

component of the study is shown in Table 1. These questions are grouped into a small

number of post hoc categories that indicate emphases determined and approved by

workshop participants.

Table 1. Questions exploring the type of benefits sought by Indigenous people motivated to engage in PES schemes (NAILSMA 2013b) Category of value Key questions explored in the workshops Connection Is the PES scheme helping to (re)build and/or enhance Indigenous peoples’ connection to

ancestral country, to local history, to familial networks, to neighbouring and other land management groups, and to the broader Australian society and economy? Does the PES activity help Indigenous land managers connect with a strong sense of the future?

Identity Is the PES activity enhancing the above? Is it enhancing the authority to make decisions about country according to custodial responsibility? Are these decisions better recognised in local and western governance arrangements? Is PES enhancing the local cultural identity of the Indigenous group and community?

Knowledge and skills Is the PES activity promoting and actively enhancing local and traditional knowledge transfer/acquisition? Is it enabling the up-skilling of local people to improve independence from outside expertise and control? Is access to and skills in orthodox science increasing peoples’ ability to argue for protection of connections inherent in Aboriginal cosmology?

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Power and empowerment

Is the PES activity enhancing personal confidence, local influence over local livelihoods, local and broader governance arrangements, and stronger interactions with the state and other interests, including partnerships? Is the PES activity supporting and enhancing customary and legal rights?

Regional context Is the PES activity in sync with local knowledge and practice around seasonal change? Is the approach to PES planning and activity informing practical responses to climate change, including effects on seasonal signals and hence customary patterns of activity?

Important issues emphasised in interactions around these questions and relating to these categories include: Connection: Relates to the relationships Indigenous people have with each other and with lands, waters and living things. These connections are expressed through family, kinship, skin system, other Indigenous law and commitment to specific homelands. No site will lack well-recognised cultural links with other sites, and those linkages may extend over long distances. Failure to meet obligations in one area will affect neighbouring and sometimes distant sites and people.

Identity: Equates with Indigenous peoples’ authority and obligation to country. A person who is recognised as holding a cultural legacy from their country accepts obligations and is assigned authority. They are the right people to negotiate with and carry out the wishes of traditional owners. ‘Caring for country’ includes the reinvigoration of place-specific local names and language. It re-engages people with their histories, lineages and sense of place, helping to strengthen personal and group confidence and pride. Elders who participated in workshop discussions talked about periodic patch burning that occurred during travel to neighbouring communities for ceremonial reasons and to alert the ceremony hosts of their passage. Fire was described as an extension of the land manager’s body, protecting values of country and reaffirming complex social life roles and responsibilities in the one application.

Knowledge and skills: Indigenous groups emphasised the obligation to transfer detailed socio-ecological knowledge to younger generations, especially through direct experience on country. In contemporary land management, a number of knowledge forms are sought and applied by Indigenous people. Local and traditional knowledge systems are pivotal but not exclusive; technical, scientific and western governance knowledge is increasingly sought to bolster capacity and reduce dependencies on external advisers.

Power and empowerment: Power has a number of facets in the local community context: personal, spiritual, social, economic and political. Respect is essential in any genuine partnership, with both parties understanding and accepting their respective obligations and entitlements and possessing the means and confidence to deliver and receive them. A measure of local empowerment is a pre-requisite for entering partnerships in the first place, but this would be reinforced and increased through positive experiences. Such positive feedbacks are necessary to build individual agency, social cohesion and, ultimately, enhanced community well-being. Improving the ability to reconcile customary law and practice with effective and productive partnerships will underpin better planning and more robust institutions for good decision-making.

Regional context: The physical, metaphysical, social and economic activities that make up and inform Indigenous land management are tuned to regional context. Much Indigenous

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knowledge is built around seasonality, related understanding of social and ecological cycles, and the importance of their relationships to sound land, water and resource management. Responding to seasonality is such a fundamental component of Indigenous knowledge and practice that it warrants separate treatment.

In the component of the study that involved greater representation of staff from Indigenous organisations involved in or seeking involvement in carbon-focused PES schemes, discussions covered issues similar to those raised by local people directly engaged in fire use on project sites, but added formal institutional perspectives related to carbon PES agreements. A post hoc categorisation of the benefits sought from engagement in PES by this group draws on Chan et al.’s (2012) cultural ecosystem service framework and is presented in Table 2. Table 2. Categorisations of benefits sought from engagement in PES deploying Aboriginal landscape burning. Categorisation is adapted from Chan et al. (2012). Quoted statements are from telephone interviews. Narratives and concerns often relate to more than one benefit category. Benefit category

Indigenous narrative Detail of benefits sought Concerns

Human rights

‘We perform roles and meet responsibilities to “care for country.”’ ‘People and country take care of each other.’ ‘Elders need to be able to make good decisions.’

Maintenance of bio-cultural diversity associated with people–country interactions. Formal laws and related governance systems support application of Indigenous knowledge and authority.

Ecological, social and spiritual responsibilities and relationships of care are damaged or fragmented. Limitations on access to information and rights to participate in decision-making.

Material

‘Healthy country – healthy people.’ ‘Bush foods … need fire to be healthy.’ ‘Less smoke leads to less sickness in the community.’

Ecosystem functions and processes flourish with proper use of fire to foster human health. Negative effects of poor fire management are reduced.

Non-Aboriginal landscape burning continues to have a negative impact on wildlife species that are ‘important for country,’ ‘culture’ (e.g. totemic animals), ‘food’ and biodiversity.

Aesthetic

Country is ‘cleaned up,’ plants show ‘green growth,’ ‘scrub cleared.’ ‘Country shows we are here.’

Landscapes reflect the positive effects of informed human presence.

Obstacles to local Indigenous people interacting with their landscapes, sometimes through competing aesthetic values relating to human absence.

Place / heritage

‘Proper fire stops wildfire damaging sacred sites.’

May include monitoring places that need to be protected, sustained or restored through fire management practices.

Weak servicing of outstations and roads to ‘travel through country.’

Activity and access

Well-burnt country provides ‘us access to good [hunting and fishing] sites.’

Aboriginal people feel free to apply Aboriginal law to fire burning goals and decision-making.

Empowerment of Aboriginal fire management knowledge, decision-

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Benefit category

Indigenous narrative Detail of benefits sought Concerns

We perform roles and responsibilities to ‘care for,’ ‘look after, share what we learnt from being out on country with Elders and kids,’ ‘get tucker,’ ‘show our knowledge about this place,’ ‘work with partners (scientists, government agencies) to manage this area.’ Part of ‘good’ work ... to see ‘dads, grandparents, everyone!’ have a role.

Partnerships achieve effective fire planning and management. Partners apply Aboriginal values or approaches to landscape burning.

making authority and participation is not maintained throughout PES agreement.

Spiritual ‘Fire the proper way, traditional way,’ shows ‘law is strong,’ provides confidence for younger generation ‘to help take over responsibilities.’ Aboriginal fire rangers are ‘happy,’ ‘proud’ to do this work, while ‘old people’ report feeling ‘relieved,’ ‘engaged’ to be part of deciding where and why to burn.

Restoration of Aboriginal landscape burning supports ceremony and other obligations to ancestors. Sacred sites are better protected.

Shifting capacity of Aboriginal communities to sustain and/or restore cultural laws, rituals, ceremonies and protocols.

Inspiration

Rangers are motivated to ‘learn,’ ‘work’ and ‘train’ so they can go out on fire management activities. People feel ‘at home,’ ‘happy,’ ‘safe,’ ‘ready to hunt!’ in properly burnt landscapes.

Motivation to seek employment and training opportunities is reinforced by customary activities. Kids want to ‘stay at school,’ ‘learn about the environment’ because they want to care for country.

Adequacy of resources to sustain and grow Indigenous participation in fire management and decision-making.

Knowledge Support for Aboriginal burning activities has led to communities being ‘a lot more active on country.’ ‘We … share what we learnt from being out on country with Elders and kids.’

Aboriginal knowledge guides fire management decisions. Enhanced opportunity for Aboriginal rangers and Elders to ‘see country’ and share knowledge about other areas of concern, how landscape responds to fire (‘we saw trees are healthy from last burn’) and where, why and how other areas need to be burnt. Engagement in on-country PES promotes knowledge of country.

Loss of knowledge and authority may compromise performance. Available (Indigenous and scientific) knowledge may be uncertain and/or difficult to reconcile, and may require collaborative efforts to share, learn and co-produce new knowledge suited to local contexts.

Existence / bequest

‘Look(ing) after country … [with fire] is for the next generation — our kids, grandkids ... kids and grandkids of kangaroo.’ ‘Part of our role as Australians — to look after mob, our country and help with climate change.’

Involvement of younger generations in fire management. Better knowledge transmission to young people. Contributions to larger scale Aboriginal management benefits (e.g. reduced greenhouse gas emissions).

None identified.

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Benefit category

Indigenous narrative Detail of benefits sought Concerns

Social capital and cohesion

‘Rangers are happy when we are out burning the bush.’ ‘We all get involved—teachers, rangers, parents, elders ... all have a part to play’ [in fire management knowledge sharing, teaching and on-ground practice].

Activities enhance the ability to access, use or relate to country as desired and/or provide positive health and well-being benefits.

Other complex social, economic, and political factors that can affect Indigenous participation and benefits from savanna fire-burning activities.

Identity ‘Right people, right place ... right fire.’ ‘I help look after fire—fire burnt the traditional way.’ ‘Our country needs fire and our mob’s job is to burn it the right way.’ Maintain an Aboriginal ‘cultural signature’ through fire use.

Maintenance or restoration of ‘sense of belonging’ when involved in burning and decisions that ‘drive … interest in building strong futures.’ Aboriginal landscape burning reinforces ‘cultural authority and supports cultural maintenance.’

None identified.

Employment ‘Everyone wants to do fire management work!’ Part of ‘good’ work for rangers and makes ‘kids, wife and family happy’ to see ‘dads, grandparents, everyone!’ have a role, ‘be proud,’ ‘get meaningful work.’

Social safeguards attract premium prices for units from Aboriginal carbon projects. Locally negotiated standards, as well as assessment of efforts to facilitate greater willingness of non-Indigenous interests (e.g. conservation NGOs) to invest in Aboriginal landscape burning projects.

Fluctuating demand for products of Indigenous PES schemes, including carbon offset schemes.

The most cursory examination of these overtly post hoc (Table 1) or a priori categorisations

(Table 2) reiterates the often-acknowledged difficulties associated with organising or

simplifying complex human–landscape relationships for presentation to external parties

who seek to influence land management practice. Interviews and workshop discussions

summarised in Table 1 demonstrate that for Aboriginal people in Northern Australia, fire

practices and the country that is burned are integral components of their identity. Sites,

places and regions that are burned are embedded in ‘country,’ where spirit beings have

moulded the morphology of the landscape, their pathways dividing and ordering

relationships between people, groups, totems, country and living resources. Based on these

connections, Traditional Owner Elders and rangers manage their territories through a

mosaic of discrete property and managerial group rights and shared regional, cultural and

economic exchange relationships. With this cultural–legal framework as a backdrop,

Aboriginal fire-burning aspirations, roles and activities are guided by the ways in which

Elders assess the health of their country, value different types of burning practices, and

assess the outcomes of burning activities. These responsibilities and values serve as the

primary motivators for Indigenous communities to engage in fire-based PES schemes.

From this perspective, Aboriginal landscape burning can be conceptualised as an ecosystem

service practice entrenched in local cultures and regional landscapes, aptly described by

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Aboriginal participants at the Mapoon workshop as ‘right country, right people, right time,

right fire’ (NAILSMA, 2013b, 9). Aboriginal accounts described how the ethics and origins of

‘country’ are in ‘dreaming,’ which provides the foundations to negotiate the relationship

between one place and another, and one species and another. These perspectives offer new

ways of considering the range of well-being services provided by Indigenous people caring

for country and resonate with experiences of other Indigenous social–ecological systems

(Kaczan et al., 2013; McDermott et al., 2012).

Table 2 translates ecosystem services and well-being as a dualistic and holistic relationship.

One cannot speak about human rights without also speaking about ecological rights, or as

one Aboriginal interviewee put it: ‘people and country take care of each other’ (‘Human and

ecological rights,’ Table 2). Access to country, decision-making authority and maintenance of

knowledge are critical to PES agreements because the Aboriginal right to care for, and be

cared by, country is a fundamental and foundational right, and because, in ecosystem

services terms, Aboriginal peoples’ access to, decisions over and interactions with their

traditional estates generate key ecosystem processes that lead to services that mutually

benefit humans and nature. For example, workshop participants involved in the Central

Arnhem Land workshop described how the top of yams dug up in the early dry season by

Aboriginal women are often replanted before the area is later burnt, which encourages

yams (an important source of bush food) to re-sprout in the following wet season (see

‘Material service’, Table 2).

Having access to visit and harvest these places helps Aboriginal people to monitor whether

their country has been ‘burnt properly.’ Under a traditional ecosystem service paradigm,

this could be described as an aesthetic service provided by appropriately burnt landscape

(‘Aesthetic service,’ Table 2) but, as one survey respondent explained, a place ‘cleaned up’

by fire ‘provides us with the evidence that we are here and how burning is a shared benefit

for us and our country.’

Some places (such as sacred sites, rock art sites and waterholes) were identified as needing

special burning attention as part of a broader effort to ensure that people and country can

take care of each other (see ‘Place/heritage service,’ Table 2). Promoting the well-being of

humans, plants and animals requires the appropriate rituals, including burning, to be

performed by the correct people who are connected to the ‘dreaming’ of that species or

country. Fire planning and management strategies have been put in place by Aboriginal

communities in some regions of Northern Australia that include ‘bush food,’ ‘historical,’

‘lore and culture,’ ‘story,’ ‘visitor,’ ‘strong and active culture,’ and ‘bush country’ places (cf.

Griffiths and Kinnane, 2010). All highlight the key characteristics of interspecies connections

and responsibility that are embedded in caring for country efforts, and which relate to

specific animals, specific people and the specific relationships embedded in their specific

country.

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Traditional use of fire enables Aboriginal people to access important land and water

resources that are highly valued as part of broader community claims to land, water and

religious/cultural rights. Indeed, fire was repeatedly described as a manifestation of those

rights and an ‘expression of culture.’ As one senior ranger stated, ‘[Fire] is part of life for

Aboriginal people,’ yet complex colonial processes have resulted in the broad-scale removal,

disenfranchisement or enticement of Aboriginal people from their customary lands (cf.

Ritchie, 2009; Cooke 2009), leaving vast landscapes vulnerable to destructive unmanaged

(wild) fire and without fine-scale care for their subtle biophysical and socio-cultural values.

Some areas, for example, were reported to have remained unburned for years, causing

wildfires to threaten important bush food and historical and cultural places (cf. Yibarbuk,

1998). If reframed as an ecosystem service issue, Aboriginal peoples’ lack of access to their

country and denial of opportunity to burn the landscape represents a location-specific

constraint on goods and services that would otherwise benefit local, national and

international societies (see ‘Activity and access service,’ Table 2). It also represents an

opportunity in a modern ‘culture based economy’ (Amstrong et al., 2006).

‘Fire the proper way’ was discussed as a tangible way of expressing that land is part of the

spiritual identity of Aboriginal people, their Elders and their future generations, and that the

law and connections holding these relationships and responsibilities together are strong

(see, ‘Spiritual service,’ Table 2). Some Aboriginal ranger groups across Northern Australia

are now involved in on-ground burning, “foot-walk” burning and aerial control burning, and

rangers described the inspiration of work on fire projects and interacting with savanna

landscapes that had been properly burnt (see ‘Inspiration service,’ Table 2). The practice of

burning was seen as reliant on Aboriginal systems of knowledge about their environment,

but also as an activity that helped build Aboriginal knowledge systems about the landscape

that had been burnt. Participants in the study highlighted that rangers plan fire annually

and, where Traditional Owners are living on country, are able to work with them to manage

fire. Where the Traditional Owners are not living on country, the rangers discuss burning

plans with them and seek their permission to go ahead. Managing fire, then, reinforces

cultural authority and supports cultural maintenance, which in turn reinforces the

commitment to deliver obligations to country (see ‘Knowledge service,’ Table 2).

Partnerships with scientists, government agencies and other land managers were seen as

critical to the knowledge benefits of country that had been well managed by fire. These

partnerships were deemed useful because they provide additional perspectives on how

country should be ‘looked after,’ help assess the biodiversity, carbon and other

environmental responses from environments that had been burnt, and work towards a

landscape that ‘supports our vision’ for these remote lands and communities. Together,

contemporary ‘actionable’ fire management knowledge systems were being built that

restored and reinforced confidence to make decisions about where, why and how other

areas should be burnt.

16

A consistent and fundamental feature of fire-burning activities is the desire to support the

intergenerational transfer of knowledge and leave country in a ‘healthy state’ for ‘our young

people’ and the other living species that share their land (see ‘Existence / bequest service,’

Table 2). As one interviewee explained, it is part of Aboriginal peoples’ role ‘as people on

this earth’ to share responsibility for managing the impacts of climate change. This supports

an argument made by others that Aboriginal landscape burning is not only important for

‘humanising’ the landscape (Head, 1994) but is also an important strategy for achieving

sound ecosystem management of Northern Australia (Yibarbuk et al., 2001). Aboriginal

workshop participants went even further, discussing how fire had the potential to shape

Australian intercultural relations and environmental culture (see ‘Social capital and cohesion

service,’ Table 2). Workshop discussions and interviews described rangers who were ‘happy’

when out ‘burning the bush,’ and how the entire community—‘teachers, rangers, parents,

Elders’—all played a role in guiding Aboriginal landscape burning decisions and appropriate

Aboriginal fire management practices (cf. Hunt et al., 2009). Such statements were part of

discussions that explored new and open-ended ways of evaluating how country, community

and partners could, as one interviewee explained, ‘let country tell you when, how, why and

where to burn’ (cf. Garde et al., 2009).

Facilitating Aboriginal landscape burning can also be conceptualised as inherent to

Aboriginal people’s identity. Elders who participated in workshop discussions talked about

periodic patch burning that occurred during travel to neighbouring communities for

ceremonial reasons and to alert the ceremony hosts of their passage. Fire was described as

an extension of the land manager’s body, protecting values of country and reaffirming

complex social life roles and responsibilities in the one application (see ‘Identity service,’

Table 2).

Burning also provides opportunities for valuable work that improves physical health and

builds social cohesion (see ‘Employment service,’ Table 2). Many rangers have acquired

qualifications through mainstream regulatory systems, including operation of incendiary

devices from helicopters to improve access to remote areas. These ‘new technology’ efforts

are pursued alongside customary activities (such as the harvest of plants and animals) and

are valued by Aboriginal people because they develop and maintain knowledge and skills,

embody connection with country, and underpin Aboriginal engagement in the hybrid

economy of many remote regions (Altman and Whitehead, 2003).

Aboriginal people across Northern Australia are therefore clear that their primary target is

the improved well-being of local Indigenous people and country which echoes motivations

from other Indigenous communities around the world engaged in PES agreements who

emphasise the need to support their rights and interests (Muradian et al., 2013). Offset

agreements that enable Indigenous people to engage in ‘caring for country’ activities are

deemed to be a key mechanism for achieving this goal, but these opportunities must reflect

17

the local context of social, economic and cultural landscape burning practices, relationships,

interests and aspirations. The degree of actual and perceived Indigenous ownership and

control is therefore an important metric against which Indigenous people evaluate the

success of PES schemes negotiated as part of these carbon offset projects. They will do this

most effectively if the potential for strong interaction between protection of rights and

deployment of financial incentives to deliver environmental benefits is explicit in PES

arrangements.

4. Conclusions

Global environmental change researchers are now being called on to provide ‘realistic,

context specific pathways to a sustainable future’ (DeFries et al., 2012), and initiatives such

as Planet under Pressure and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem

Services have initiated debate not only about the global environmental problems that

should be prioritised, but also about the values that should be incorporated into any

potential solutions. Ensuing discussions around climate change, in particular, have

highlighted a growing conviction that Indigenous benefits associated with carbon offset

projects must a) be promoted in ways that acknowledge and protect Indigenous

participation and ownership, and b) reflect the priorities of local Indigenous people. This

places greater onus on global environmental change offset partners to take a solutions-

orientated approach that values and incorporates the contributions of Indigenous peoples

(past, present and future) to sustainable development. This paper responds to this

important shift in climate change policy by demonstrating how (and why) PES schemes can

be reframed to include broader recognition of Indigenous relationships to their traditional

estates and the priorities of local Indigenous groups.

This research highlights the key issues that can inform efforts to negotiate the protection of

rights and deployment of financial incentives that can ensure Indigenous PES arrangements

provide desired co-benefits to local communities (Saunders et al., 2002; Robinson et al.,

2016). Indigenous PES agreements need to pay heed to the very active relationship

Indigenous peoples have with nature and with a suite of subsequent cultural ecosystem

services instead of considering nature a ‘service provider’ and ignoring the important ways

in which humans contribute to socio-ecological processes and functions. Rather than

focusing on how ecosystem services can be valued, commoditised or measured, Indigenous

PES payment negotiations could instead focus on the reflexive and active human–

environment relationships that ‘service’ one another. While this may mean that some PES

scheme benefits are not codifiable or of interest to offset investors, these benefits

nonetheless need to be supported because they are critical to sustaining the current and

future well-being of Indigenous cultures and country and the shared responsibility to sustain

our environment. Framing Indigenous PES schemes negotiations around these benefits can

18

open up pathways to help design and deliver successful mitigation strategies that also offer

an important opportunity for Indigenous people to provide (and be paid for) environmental

services aligned with Indigenous customary and contemporary obligations to their

traditional estates.

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Acknowledgements We acknowledge the Traditional Owners who contributed to the scholarship and practice of Indigenous PES schemes in Australia. The authors also wish to acknowledge the support of the North Australia Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA), CSIRO, the ARC ‘Integrated assessments of Indigenous Land Management Effectiveness' Linkage Grant, the Nature Conservation Agency and the National Environment ScienceProgram.